Operation: Forget
by Hyaenaa
Summary: Comparatively speaking, Skipper understood Kowalski's pain over Doris, because he too had been in a similar situation. Years ago, on a secret mission, Skipper had met his own Doris. The difference was, of course, she came in the form of a deadly, two-faced, treacherous puffin.


**Operation: Forget**

Another wailing fit of sobs, and another sleepless night for the penguin crew. Skipper sighed into his flippers; not even the allegedly soundproof walls of Kowalski's lab could counter his echoing pity party. Beneath him, Private stirred with a sympathetic groan and Rico mumbled under his breath in frustration. Skipper's brow furrowed. This would not fly.

Agitation reaching it's limit, Skipper hopped out of his bunk with the full intention of scolding Kowalski for the eighteenth time that day. Behind him, Private poked his head up from beneath his pillow with a tight frown. He'd expressed before that he thought Kowalski needed to cry it out, but had been shot down by his commander, rather harshly. There was nothing gentle about a broken heart.

Skipper yanked open the lab door with vigorous force. His glare was at full capacity and aimed at the blubbering mess that was Kowalski. The brains of their operation was curled up on the floor, flippers covering his fountain eyes as he whimpered pathetically.

"Get it together, man! You need to stop with your crybaby act and get over her." Skipper snarled, the commando tone dominating his voice.

"I j-j-just can't, Skipper!" Kowalski keened, peering up with a quivering beak. "She was my... My everythi-i-i-ing!" 

Skipper surged forth and pulled up the scientist, before slapping him across the face. "Listen to yourself! Don't you realize how ridiculous you sound? Just forget about the dame, she's already forgotten about you!"

This only triggered more tears to leak from Kowalski's eyes, accompanied by a lengthy whine. "You wouldn't understand, Skipper! You've never been where I am!"

Skipper's eyes narrowed at that accusation and he threw Kowalski to the cement floor. "If that's how it's gonna be, then at the very least give your team the courtesy of taking your sob parade somewhere where we won't hear it."

Kowalski sent him a vulnerable glance of misery, tears welling up further in his eyes, before he sniffled and nodded. Dejected, he slumped away from the room, and moments after he left Skipper could hear him climbing up the latter and out of their base. With a lengthy sigh of exhaustion, Skipper found himself sitting on the floor of the lab and staring at the ground as though it held the answers to how to forget about an unrequited love.

Comparatively speaking, Skipper understood Kowalski's pain over Doris, because he too had been in a similar situation. Years ago, on a secret mission, Skipper had met his own Doris. The difference was, of course, she came in the form of a deadly, two-faced, treacherous puffin.

He'd been naive, back then, to think that Hans and he could have been... Anything. At the time he was so sure, so very positive, that fate was in their favor, and he pursued Hans with every fiber in his body. Though his primary objective was to procure a USB drive with some very sensitive files that would out extremely classified information (such as the coordinates of a hoard of very rare and valuable fish) to the Denmark embassy, his assigned partner - Hans - was his true interest. From the moment he'd seen that bird, he'd viewed him as an equal, and that was the true step in forging romantic interest towards him.

Unfortunately, his flirtations had a way of worming themselves in at the worst times. Skipper couldn't help himself, not at the time; in the midst of a chase he'd ask Hans out for a romantic dinner by the seashore. He would offer him a herring during a very carefully timed sneak attack. He'd lean in for a kiss when Hans was aiming a sniper. Attempt to give him a back massage when Hans was disabling a bomb.

What could he say? Skipper had been a man who found danger to be passionate, even in his younger days.

At first, Hans was alarmed, if not bewildered by Skipper's attempts, before he seemed to reciprocate. And then, just when their mission had reached it's climax, Hans turned on him. Not only did he compromise the mission, but he used Skipper as a scapegoat and humiliated him by dumping him in front of the Denmark special forces, and then laughing in his face.

Hans was out of his reach. He was the relationship Skipper could never have, the Doris to his Kowalski, the oil to his water. He was the one Skipper so desperately wanted to forget, the one that he had spent his nights crying over when he was just as freshly broken as Kowalski.

Skipper sat up, steeling a scowl over his face. He would not reminisce. There was nothing to come of it. Denmark, Hans, and his betrayal would fade with time, and that was how it was meant to be. He returned to his bunk, anger and bitterness still permeating his system even as he got into a comfortable position.

Though Kowalski was topside, Skipper swore he could still hear the lament of unrequited love.


End file.
